306 A HISTORY OF 



provision was made in the Act for the surrender of the 

 existing charter, and the granting of a new one. 



The intention of the Society to apply for a charter 

 which would place it in a position to promote science, 

 and to carry on the other branches of its work with 

 greater efficiency, had been openly expressed. The 

 Royal Irish Academy took alarm, and in a letter to 

 the secretary of the Treasury, dated May the 22nd 

 1877, protested against the Society embarking in the 

 cultivation of abstract science, contending that the 

 existing charters restricted the Society to science in 

 relation to its industrial or economic application. 

 The Society drew up a "Statement of Facts," in 

 which it was shown that of 200 printed papers in the 

 previous twenty years, 98 dealt with pure science, 70 

 with applied science, and 32 with non-scientific subjects. 

 The Society held that the severance of applied from 

 pure science, which the Academy advocated, had long 

 ceased to be practicable, and had not been observed by 

 the Academy itself. To emphasise this point, the 

 recent address of Dr. Andrews as President of the 

 British Association was quoted. He said : " It is 

 with the greater confidence, therefore, that I have 

 ventured to suggest that no partition wall should 

 anywhere be raised between pure and applied science." 

 The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education 

 expressed their belief that the strictures contained in 

 the letter of the Academy were fully met by the 

 Society's reply, "and therefore that it could not be 

 said that the former Society had any claim to a 

 monopoly as against the Royal Dublin Society in the 

 cultivation of abstract science." 



It was not until January the i8th, 1883, that the 

 Council was in a position to submit the draft of 

 the second supplemental charter to the Society for 



